


In Spite Of

by chaoticamanda



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 13, Time Travel, but mostly this is about the reds and blues being a family, tuckington is heavily implied its not reeallyy explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-10 08:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10433655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticamanda/pseuds/chaoticamanda
Summary: They can hear the steady thrum of uniform steps coming closer and closer, and they all feel a tug in their guts--we cannot survive this.Tucker pulls on the round helmet again and Grif braces himself against the wall. The call to Church is almost on Tucker’s lips before he remembers and he can’t stop the grimace from twisting his face.The first soldier rounds the corner, a pistol at the ready. Caboose drops his gun, and Donut cries out, “‘Lina!”





	1. feels like the end

“What do we do now?” They are bloodied and bruised, barely breathing but somehow still fucking alive. Doc is breathing heavily, sagging under the weight of his weapons and Donut is on the ground, moaning. Halfway through the firefight they’d lost all communication with Carolina and Wash, but Simmons is still half-heartedly trying to contact them. Tucker removes his helmet-- _so different, too different--_ and wipes blood from his chin. They all jump when a message begins to play, and Caboose’s weapon even discharges with a dismal click because he ran out of both ammo and confetti ages ago. They hear Church’s-- _Epsilon’s--_ voice bounce around the room painted red, “Hey guys... if you're hearing this then it means you did it. You won. You kicked the shit out of Hargrove's forces. I knew you could. But this is my last stop. See, when I came into this world, I was really just a collection of somebody else's memories. But with your help, these memories... they-they took form! They became _my_ voice, _my_ personality. And, after a while, I... I began to make brand new memories of my own. All of these things are what make me who I am... but they're also holding me back.

“I can't run this suit as Epsilon, but if I erase my memories, if I... deconstruct myself, the fragments I'll leave behind will have the strength to get you through this. I believe that.  I wish that there was another way. But I’m leaving this message, as well as others, in the hopes that you'll understand why I have to go this time...heh, it was actually _Doyle_ who made me realize something that I've never thought of before. There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero... never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch.”

Grif mutters bitterly in the silence the AI’s voice leaves behind, “Fuck you, Church.”

Caboose pleads brokenly, “I want to go home.”

“We’re going to have to find a way off this ship-- Tucker, do you have any power left?” Simmons has given up on trying to get through to the others, “What did you use?”

Tucker glances at Simmons emptily, “I don’t—everything? Everything was so fucking fast.”

“I hear ya,” Sarge nods, letting his shotgun rest on the ground, “Seemed like they just stopped coming-- like we were in a different place all of a sudden.”

“Hey…” Donut says from his place on the ground, “I felt like that too! Right around when we lost the lines with Wash and Carolina!”

 _“You idiots. Can you not see the room is different? We are in a different place,”_ Lopez mutters, using a screwdriver to work on the armor surrounding his fingers.

“Aw, I’m glad you’re alive too, Lopez!” Donut raises a shaky hand to pat the robot.

“We need to get moving, reinforcements could be here any moment!” O’Malley cries, attempting to lift his rocket launcher.

“Carolina and Wash should have been here--” Tucker frowns, gaze snapping to Grif when the man shushes them all.

“Someone’s coming!”

“Lock and load, boys,” Sarge shouts, using the small amount of energy recovered from the pause of mayhem to stand, “Break’s over.”

They can hear the steady thrum of uniform steps coming closer and closer, and they all feel a tug in their guts-- _we cannot survive this._ Tucker pulls on the round helmet again and Grif braces himself against the wall. The call to Church is almost on Tucker’s lips before he remembers and he can’t stop the grimace from twisting his face.

The first soldier rounds the corner, a pistol at the ready. Caboose drops his gun, and Donut cries out, “‘Lina!”

Sarge lets out a short chuckle, but he’s cut short by a sharp voice, “Hands where we can see them! Drop your weapons or we will not _hesitate_ to open fire!”

Carolina glances behind her, and Tucker’s eyes are drawn to the armor of his best friend, the yellow stripes still pristine. He realizes that these are not his friends, and suddenly his armor seems too heavy to carry. Two more soldiers of different colors have filed in behind Carolina and Wash, and their arrival has stunted the reds and the blues. They don’t know what to do.

“Wash?” Donut asks brokenly, looking up at the soldier from the ground. This Wash carries himself differently-- he is not struggling under the weight of his friends’ deaths.

The soldier in black and yellow looks down at Donut, surprised, “How do you know my name?”

“Oh, hell,” Grif crows, inching back along the wall.

Simmons slaps a hand to his helmet, crying out, “The time thing!”

“Put your hands up! This is your last warning!” Carolina snarls, and Tucker can only stare at her.

“You have _got_ to be fucking with me,” are the words that claw themselves up his throat, “Jesus Christ.”

“Boy, put your hands up!” Sarge nudges Tucker, the fatherly annoyance ever-present in his voice, “Freelancers don’t know us from a stinkin’ target!”

“Hey!” A soldier in gold protests, “Stop talking about us like we’re not here!”

“York…” Carolina warns, distracted.

Doc takes the chance to push himself backwards, bringing Donut with him. Wash takes a threatening step forward, but Caboose blocks his way, whimpering, “Why are you being so mean, Washingtub? You said you would rescue us.”

“These are Freelancers, you idiot,” Tucker steps forward to put a hand on Caboose, “and not _our_ Freelancers, the old ones-- the bad ones.”

“Agent Washington, do you know these soldiers?” Carolina barks, an edge to her voice.

“Of course not! What--”

“Guys!” A voice calls from behind them, his purple armor pushing his way to the front. “Calm down, they-- they don’t look like insurgents, they just look confused.”

“Hell yeah we’re confused,” Grif cries out, “One second we’re fighting for our lives above Chorus, the next second Carolina and Wash come through the door with the ghost gang!”

There is a beat of silence before Wash blurts out a confused, “What the fuck?”

“Just-- Just let us go, we need to go home!” Donut cries, his voice wavering.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Carolina informs them, and her cockiness is so tangible that Tucker could punch it. “Stowaways on the Mother of Invention are not welcome, and we need to know how you breached our perimeter. You’ll have to answer to the Director.”

“The Director?” Doc blurts out, his voice full of fear.

“There must have been a malfunction with the suit-- too much juice or something,” Simmons turns to explain to them, glancing back nervously at the Freelancers, “Wyoming’s-- the Meta’s time thingy, remember? Tucker must have activated it somehow.”

“Are you sayin’ we got to face _all_ the Freelancers and the goddamned Director _again?_ ” Sarge demands, pointing his shotgun threateningly at Simmons. The Freelancers are watching with confusion, and York has managed to keep Carolina from shooting the soldiers. Tucker watches Wash, studying the man that they never got to know. He wonders when this Wash will turn into their Wash-- _his Wash._ He misses the old days when all they had to worry about was flags and god forbid, Te--

“Hey! Where’s Tex?” Tucker demands, stepping forward. The Freelancers all tense at his advance, but Carolina actually raises her gun.

“How do you know Agent Texas?” Her voice is steel, and there’s nothing he can do to stop her from shooting him if she wants to. “Answer me!” She barks, sending the bickering soldiers into silence.

“She…” _she dated my best friend who turned out to be an AI who sacrificed himself to stop the Meta who was controlled by your father who you killed after Church had already died twice and he gave up his search for her when you brought him back the last time and god, he’s dead again, again_ “Haven’t you been listening?”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrow and she takes a step closer to Tucker. He isn’t afraid-- he’s tired of this shitshow and he just wants to go home. “You all had better start explaining before I really do blow your goddamned heads off-- we won’t even tell the Director you were here, and no one will ever know.”

“Carolina…” The purple one warns, putting his hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off and Donut catches his breath.

“We’re from the future,” Tucker says simply, waiting for the bullet to come. He feels a brief wave of deja vu, like they’ve done this before, but he lets it pass.

“E-excuse me?” York laughs, cocking his head.

“It’s true,” Sarge grunts, “I don’t know when this is, but I’d bet we’re all trapped in a goddamned box canyon right about now, maybe shooting at each other.”

“I might be there!” Donut chimes in, trying to stop shaking.

 _“I_ could be there by now,” Doc adds.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sarge waves their comments off, “Point is, _we_ ain’t there right now.”

“Right. Because...you’re from the _future.”_ Tucker’s never heard such sarcasm from Wash, even in the best of times.

“Look,” Tucker takes another step forward, making all the Freelancers tense again, “It sounds ridiculous, but...Wash...Carolina...we _know_ you. In fact, we were waiting for you two to evac us outta this stupid place. We...we’ve been through a lot together.” He’s staring at Wash, willing the man to somehow see into the future, to recognize them.

“What about us?” The purple one asks, and the soldiers look at each other uncomfortably.

Simmons sighs, summoning his courage and saying, “We...we don’t know you. Only Carolina and Washington are...currently in action.”

Carolina moves her sights to him, “Stop.”

Sarge puts himself in front of Simmons, staring down her barrel, “It’s true, lady. Hell, we even killed some of you-- mostly in self-defense, since y’all love shooting anything that--”

Carolina fires her gun, and the bullet misses Sarge by a few inches. Simmons and Donut shriek, but Tucker doesn’t even flinch. _Get it over with already._

Tucker squares his shoulders, stepping right up to Carolina, ignoring Sarge’s warning grunt and the Freelancer’s backing her up. “You’ll have to take us to your dad now. He’s going to torture us-- going to dig through our brains until there’s nothing left but the fucking truth,” Tucker lets out a hollow little laugh, “and the truth is that right now, you’re the bad guys. We…” he looks back at his friends, sees their terrified looks, “...we just fought some bad guys, you know. Enemies still fucking left even after we dismantled this whole goddamned organization. Let me tell you, ‘Lina, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Carolina tilts her head, a thick silence surrounding everyone in the room. Then she hits him with the butt of her gun, grinning to herself as he drops to the floor. The grin doesn’t last long, because all the intruders start immediately screaming. Sarge surges forward, hooking his arms under Tucker and pulling him back. The rest of them scuttle backwards, shaking.

Caboose shouts, “I didn’t do it!”

Donut shrieks, “Please don’t kill me again!”

Grif groans, “I always thought it would be the cone.”

Tucker’s head is lolling back and forth in Sarge’s arms, and the man watches the group of Freelancers—the purple one who had burst forward to confront Carolina, the gold one who’s trying to mediate, and Washington, who’s just staring at Tucker’s limp body. “Simmons,” Sarge grunts finally, “surrender our weapons.”

“What?” Simmons cries, looking at Sarge like he’s gone crazy, “You can’t be serious!”

“We’ve got to live to die another day,” Sarge says, “and that’s real hard to do around trigger happy Freelancers, ‘specially when they get their sights on weapons.”

Before any of the others can respond, another soldier in white comes up behind his fellow Freelancers, and a small flicker of fire bursts to life by his side, “Carolina, I think it would be prudent to store these intruders in cells rather than cause a further fuss. We wouldn’t want Agent Texas to get involved.”

Carolina sighs, “Yes, that’s true. Thank you, Sigma.”

 _“You have got to be shitting me,”_ Lopez says at the same time that Doc asks, “Isn’t that…?”

“There’s no way we’re surviving this,” Grif sighs, leaning against the wall, “Anyone want odds on who kills us?”

“Um, I don’t think teamkilling is odd,” Caboose says in that serious tone of his, but the others ignore him.

Donut talks around his shaking hands, “It wouldn’t be the first time Wash has pounded me.”

“Excuse me?” Wash splutters, and his friends all give him incredulous looks.

“Enough!” Carolina shouts, “Get the prisoners out of here.”

“Um, excuse me, C-Agent Carolina, but most of us need some medical help. Especially Tucker,” Doc fidgets against her stare, but it is North who speaks up.

“We’ll make sure you’re seen to.”

“Thank you,” Doc’s grip tightens on Donut, “I’m a medic. I could help—if you need it. _You Barney looking fool.”_

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Doc coughs, looking away.

The eight of them are squeezed into an interrogation room, the thick glass on one wall reflecting their haggardness back at them. Their armor has been confiscated, and it takes Tucker fifteen minutes to come back into consciousness with a misplaced, “Bow chicka…ow ow?”

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Grif asks, his voice slightly hysterical, “I don’t want to be experimented on!”

“We’ll figure something out,” Doc says weakly, his voice betraying his words.

“We need a plan of attack,” Sarge says, his fingers resting on the bandage taped to his abdomen.

“What’s the fucking point?” Tucker bites sourly, “Church is dead again, our Wash and Carolina probably think we’re dead too, we’re stuck with the Bad Freelancers, and we don’t even have the clean Epsilon.”

“We can’t give up,” Simmons says, his voice soft and tired, “…not after everything else.”

“Church will come back,” Caboose says with confidence, and not even Tucker can muster the strength to shout at him, “He always comes back.”

“Maybe Caboose is right,” Donut says thoughtfully.

“Shut the fuck up,” Tucker presses his palms to his forehead, bursts of emotion and fragments of foreign memory pulsing behind his skull.

“No, think about it,” Donut insists, “The Alpha hasn’t been destroyed yet, right? That evil AI is here right now, so maybe…maybe Church is still here too.”

“Technically you’re right…” Simmons sucks in a breath, “…but Wash didn’t seem very fucked up, no offense. So that means that Epsilon hasn’t been created either…”

“So the Director hasn’t tortured the Alpha to the point he had when we knew him,” Doc supplies.

“So what?” Sarge grumbles, “We find that stupid ghost and he helps us?”

“Like we’d ever get to him,” Grif rolls his eyes, “We landed earlier than we thought, which makes what we know pretty goddamn shaky.”

“What about Tex?” Tucker asks quietly, looking at them all. “She wanted to save the Alpha. Church. She was the one who broke in.”

“Please, God, anyone but her,” Grif moans, his hands hovering above his crotch.

“We need t’get our bearings,” Sarge leans against the wall, “so we know who we’re up against.”

“Well, there’s definitely Wash and Carolina,” Donut holds up two fingers.

“Tex, Wyoming, and Maine are probably here too,” Simmons adds.

“Fucking great,” Tucker mutters. “Most of them have tried to kill us.”

“There’s a purple lady that looks like the nice one who brought us in here!” Caboose chimed in, “She was not nice, though. Washingtub shot her.”

The word bubbles to Tucker’s mouth before he can stop it, “South.”

“Did Wash tell you that?” Simmons peers at Tucker with concern.

“No, I…” Tucker doesn’t know how he knows. It feels like a million things are bursting inside of his mind, every thought a train wreck he can’t escape.

“Are you okay?” Doc asks, creeping toward Tucker. They’ve all been briefly checked out, but the Freelancers didn’t much care to make them comfortable.

“My head…just hurts,” Tucker sighs, unable to resist Doc’s cool fingers against his forehead, “It feels like I have a bunch of shit to say, but I don’t have the words to say it.”

“I bet Wash would know what to do!” Donut says, wrapping his arms around his knees, “Epsilon really pummeled him too!”

“Well, Wash isn’t here,” Tucker snaps, “and we’ll probably never see our Wash or our Carolina again. Or our families. We’re in the fucking past! Anything we do now might fuck everything up later!”

“Shit,” Sarge grunts, “I never thought I’d see the day where a dirty blue started to make sense.”

The room is quiet for a few minutes as they all stew in their thoughts, until Simmons finally murmurs, “What if we do change everything?”

“What do you mean?” Donut asks, his voice small.

“I mean,” Simmons starts to get louder as his confidence grows, “What if we change everything? What if we stop all the bad shit from happening now, so it doesn’t fuck us later?”

“We’d probably just make it worse,” Grif says, “By the looks of it, I’d say Carolina needs to be humbled a little.”

“We could stop the Director’s evil deeds!” Donut cries, ignoring Grif. “We could still save Wash!”

“We’d probably get killed,” Grif answers flatly, “and I won’t be able to finally eat some decent fucking food if I die.”

“I think we’re going to die either way,” Simmons says glumly, “There’s no way the Freelancers even believe we’re from the future. They just do whatever the director says.”

 _“Didn’t you idiots record everything on your helmets?”_ Lopez interjects, _“That is indisputable truth.”_

“You’re right, Lopez,” Donut nods, “Carolina does look way different with her old helmet.”

 

“Does anything they’re saying make any sense to you?” York turns away from the glass, unsettled by the soldiers behind it.

“Well,” North crosses his arms, “They mention Wash and Carolina a lot. And the Director being…evil?”

York frowns, “Yeah…back when we found them…that green guy called us the “Bad Freelancers”. What the hell does that mean?”

“Something feels really wrong about this,” North glances at the men, his eyes falling to the one who had spoken Spanish. “F.I.L.L.S., what did the Spanish one say?”

“The handsome one?” F.I.L.L.S. responds, “He said, “Didn’t you idiots record everything on your helmets? That is indisputable truth.””

“Uh, thanks, F.I.L.L.S.” North makes a face at York, “Maybe that’ll tell us something.”

York nods, pressing a finger to the intercom, “You guys have recordings on your helmets?”

The reds and blues all jump, looking around the room for the source of the noise. Caboose yells, “Church, is that you?” at the same time that Grif swears, “Shit! That’s right!”

Lopez shakes his head.

The reds and blues are herded to a different room while the other Freelancers are alerted. Simmons volunteers his footage, since he’s the only one of the four who actually know how to work it.

The footage is scrubbed until they hear, “We have to play this thing carefully, you understand? If an entire planet dies overnight, well, people ask questions. But if you stumble onto this rock and find that the settlers killed each other, well, that's just a tragedy!” Tucker’s fist clenches when he sees Felix on the footage, and the Freelancers watch it closely.

Past Tucker shouts furiously, “It was you! _You_ started this war!” The camera catches the backs of all of the soldiers, including Wash’s unmistakable armor. Carolina’s gaze snaps quickly to the Wash in the room, who is staring at the footage with his mouth hanging open.

Felix is in the middle of his monologue, “…we just had to keep the hate train a-goin'. And let me tell you, you guys have helped so much. Does it hurt? Knowing just how much death you’ve brought to this planet?”

Locus cuts Felix off, frustrated with how long he’s taking. “Enough! How many times must I tell you, if you want to make the victim suffer, you do it quickly, and efficiently. There will be no rescue for you. You will die _here_ , today, along with the rest. _No one_ will find your bodies, no one will know the truth, and no one is going to stop us from _killing_ every last person on this planet!”

Tucker’s anger reignites as he listens to the words, thinks of how many lives were wasted, how fucked up the whole situation was—how they will probably never get to see the aftermath of Chorus. Hearing Past Carolina’s voice makes him smirk just the tiniest bit, and he enjoys watching the Freelancers realize who is speaking. “All right, that’s all I need to hear.”

Past Carolina jumps down, fighting Felix in her camouflage. Simmons’s helmet only catches bits and pieces of the fight, his gaze moving from Grif to Wash as the man yells, “Just grab it and shoot!”

The Freelancers all glance at Wash, but both he and Carolina are glued to the screen. Past Carolina shouts, “Stay close!” as she tosses a Future Cube down, and the footage warps for a moment.

The footage shows the ground before Past Simmons regains his bearings, stumbling. “Is everyone okay?” Past Wash asks, sounding a little worn himself.

Tucker leans forward for the big reveal, when Past Carolina sheds the black color for their shared aqua-teal-seafoam. “I never thought I’d be so glad to see you idiots again!” Tucker can hear the smile in her voice, and suddenly his chest aches to be back in that moment.

“Carolina?” Past Tucker practically shouts. Tucker bites his lip—he wants his friends to be together again, and when Epsilon blinks into existence, he feels sick to his stomach. “That’s not all! Miss me, assholes?”

The footage ends with Tucker pouncing at Epsilon, and Tucker shakes his head to clear it. Carolina and Wash are staring at each other, and the rest of the Freelancers are watching them with bated breath. Finally, Tucker asks, “Believe us now?”

All of the heads snap to the soldiers at the back, including Washington and Carolina’s. Tucker can feel Donut trembling next to him, but his gaze doesn’t waver. Silence passes with each beat, and Tucker would almost say that time is frozen, but then Carolina says hoarsely, “We need the Director. Put them back in the interrogation room.”

“Oh, come on,” Grif groans, but supports Sarge as they stand.

Tucker just shakes his head and leads the way, tired and agitated. His headache isn’t any better, and he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s got words trying to crawl up his throat. Only two of the Freelancers follow, the gold one and the darker purple one from before. More knowledge pulses at the base of his skull, making his fingers twitch; _North, twin of South…Theta’s trusted companion…York, the lockpick…the lover…the carrier of logic._

Doc scuttles closer to Tucker as they walk, grasping his arm, “Seriously, are you alright? You’re getting all twitchy.”

“Fine,” Tucker grits, “I just—I don’t like being here.”

“I get it,” Doc says quietly, “Wash is so different, right?”

Tucker doesn’t say anything, looking down at the floor. They’re all stuffed into the interrogation room again, left alone to wait for their doom. Sarge paces the length of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Tucker hobbles to the wall, leaning against it and then sliding down it. Simmons looks around the room, coughing awkwardly before asking, “S-So…what are we going to do?”

“I say we kill each other right now before the Director does all his weird evil stuff on us,” Grif grumbles, grimacing.

O’Malley grins, “I can work with that.”

“Is there any way we can get home?” Donut asks meekly, ignoring Doc.

“Andersmith will be waiting for me,” Caboose says solemnly.

“The—They took the suit.” Simmons stammers, “We’re s-stuck here, guys.”

 _“Maybe the existing temporal unit can be manipulated to send us back,”_ Lopez says.

“Lopez is right! We need help!” Donut nods, his voice still weak, “Maybe we can convince Wash! Or Tex!”

“Wash won’t help us,” Tucker snaps, pressing his fingers to his temple, “He’s not the same Wash we know—he doesn’t care about us.”

“Maybe we can convince him! What do we…how can we do that?” Donut’s voice picks up as he speaks.

“Well…what information can we use?” Simmons says uncertainly, glancing nervously at the mirror.

“The Freelancers are dicks,” Grif grunts from where he has sunken onto the floor, “They’re using us for target practice—I think they use each other for practice too.”

“They can’t be reasoned with,” Sarge shakes his head, “What if we just serve the Dirtbag a nice shotgun breakfast?”

“That’s my favorite kind,” Caboose nods, looking down only to remember that Freckles has been confiscated. “Church’s too, I think.”

“That won’t work,” Simmons purses his lips, “Even if we somehow manage to kill the Director, the Chairman will just swoop in.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tucker moans, “We really are fucked.”

“Not even in the good way,” Donut says sadly, leaning against Doc, who blushes furiously.

Silence falls among the group again, but Tucker can practically hear the pounding in his head. Different memories are being artificially strung together, his time at Blood Gulch morphing into Chorus and then into holding down the sand temple. There are bursts of memories that he can’t place in between, information he doesn’t think he ever knew but somehow knows now.

Donut breaks the silence finally, “Do you think Wash and Carolina think we’re dead?”

“We never said goodbye,” Caboose says, playing with his hands, “They’ll know we’re coming back.”

“Caboose…” Simmons sighs, but doesn’t say anything else.

“They won’t find any bodies,” Sarge stops pacing, looking around at the others, “Not ours, at least.”

“Epsilon’s message went out though,” Tucker says, looking up at Sarge with bloodshot eyes, “Technically we did what we meant to do.”

“Well, that’s a fucking surprise,” Grif almost laughs, “I guess we _would_ be doomed the first time we actually get it right on purpose.”

“Better us than Wash and Carolina,” Simmons says quietly, “They actually know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“Well—Well, we can’t give up!” Doc says, “Not after everything we’ve been through. Maybe we can idiot our ways out of this. Like Sarge said, we’ve beaten these guys before.”

“Just give up, Doc,” Tucker says bitterly, his eyes wet, “We’re fucking trapped.”

“Damn, dude,” Grif leans forward to look at Tucker, “What’s your problem?”

“I’m tired.” Tucker snaps, his mouth pulling up into a scowl, “I miss our friends. I miss that stupid fucking canyon. I miss Wash.” His voice breaks on Wash’s name, and most of the others look away.

There is a soft knocking on the door and they all scramble into a corner as Caboose calls, “Come in!”

The door swings open and the air leaves Tucker’s lungs as Washington stands there, young and unburdened. “Wash-ington!” Doc catches himself halfway through the greeting, “Where’s the Director?”

“The Director is watching the footage right now,” Washington answers, glancing around shiftily, “Um. I wanted to ask you…some questions.”

“I love opening up!” Donut says tentatively, “It’s even better if you’ve got someone to prod around, like you Wash!”

Washington just stares at the group, looking like he regrets opening the door. He clears his throat and steps in, closing the door behind him. He’s in his armor, rifle clear to see on his back—Tucker can tell it’s probably meant to be a little threatening. “I just…you guys say you’re from the future…”

“We’re definitely from the future, I think,” Caboose answers helpfully, “You’re a lost less crabby.”

“Um…look,” Washington glances around again, “I don’t really know why I came in here. I just…your story sounds ridiculous, but that was my voice and my armor on that feed, so, so you can’t be…that crazy.”

Grif elbows Tucker, “Even when he doesn’t know us, he still thinks we suck.”

Tucker gives Grif a dark look before turning his gaze back to Washington. He never really thought it was possible to see someone as “not-tortured”, but that’s how Washington looks. There aren’t those lines in his face, his forehead isn’t creased in that constant state of worry, his eyes are just _lighter._ Tucker lets another deep breath go, “What do you want to know?”

Washington looks at him like he’s the only sane person in the room, but there is no familiarity in the gaze, and that makes Tucker’s heart clench. “How…How do you guys know who I am?”

“Uh…I think Caboose is the only blue left who started out with you,” Simmons frowns, “Sarge came and got me and Grif…and then Tucker was in the—“

“You needed our help to take out the Meta,” Grif cuts Simmons off.

“The…Meta?” Washington asks, confused.

Tucker’s voice is low, “Sigma is going to make Agent Maine go berserk and try to steal all the AI so they can become whole. There’s going to be a break-in on the ship that causes Carolina to…die-ish, and the Alpha’s going to be sent away to a small little box canyon surrounded by stupid fucking sim soldiers.”

“That’s us!” Donut chimes in.

“Yeah, Donut,” Tucker rolls his eyes, “Tex is going to come and kick ass and shit’ll go down and eventually you show up because we’re the only ones who’ve dealt with your Freelancer fuckery in the right way. We’ll work together, and then you go to prison after you destroy the Meta. Then you’ll come after us with fucked-up Maine, well—not me at first.”

“You shot me,” Donut says, his face falling for a moment, “That was really scary.”

“Yes, it was,” Doc nods, “You kept me prisoner.”

Wash is looking at them with a horrified expression, and somehow that gives Tucker the strength to keep talking, “We work it out eventually. Carolina comes back from the dead with Epsilon—that’s the AI you’re supposed to get that’s gonna really fuck you up—and we end up killing the Director. You become the defacto leader of blue team—that’s me and Caboose and…Doc? We’re so unlucky that we were involved in a shipwreck that turned out to be a master plot to kill a whole planet courtesy of Malcolm Hargrove. There was a lot of fucked up shit and then a last stand and then we were…here.”

“It sounds so simple when ya put it like that,” Sarge marvels, elbowing Lopez.

Washington is clearly stunned, blinking at the soldiers before him. Tucker knows it’s a lot of information, and almost all of it must sound like a load of shit, but it makes his head a little less crowded as he lays it out. It’s not that he wants to hurt Washington, or that he thinks simplifying their experience will suddenly morph Washington into Wash, he just needs to get the words out.

“I…I don’t…” Washington gapes at them, his words unable to make his thoughts clear.

“I know, we’re pretty cool,” Caboose grins.

“We’re a lot of things,” Grif rolls his eyes, “Stupid, hungry, unlucky, good-looking if you’re talking about me…”

“We’re telling the truth,” Simmons cuts in, his voice tinged with desperation.

“It sounds awful,” Wash finally manages. Tucker feels a little twinge at that, and he gives a weak smile.

“It’s our life...and we want nothing more than to get back to it,” Tucker says grimly, leaning forward, “Listen, Wash… _David…_ we need you to trust us. In the future, in _our_ future, we trust each other with our lives. So I need you, right now, to trust us when we say that Project Freelancer is some bad fucking shit—it’s going to _wreck_ you.”

“I-I…” Washington swallows, but Tucker makes a decision before he can reply.

“There’s probably no hope for us, and it doesn’t matter why we’re here,” Tucker says, his voice shaky as the pulsing in his head begins to ramp up again, “B-but if we can do any fucking good here, we will.”

“We’ve always been about givin’ the good fight,” Sarge grunts, his lips curling into a smirk. No one protests, and Tucker can practically feel the wave of acceptance washing over them. If nothing else, they’ve always been able to roll with the punches. After everything, they are bloodied and bruised, barely breathing but somehow still fucking _alive_ and that counts for everything.

“So, Wash…” Donut leans forward, “…will you trust us?”

Washington looks around at their motley crew of survivors until his eyes land back on Tucker. Tucker stares right back, those words almost on the tip of his tongue, the image of his Wash and the Washington in front of him blurring together. Something in Washington seems to soften, his shoulders relax and his eyes are still… _alive_ , and Tucker feels a spark of hope in his chest that maybe they can actually save him. Washington’s voice is breathless but sure, “I don’t know why…but I think I actually do trust you guys.”

It’s enough.


	2. hurts like hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash and Carolina's POV

Wash knows he’s become softer since joining the reds and blues. Perhaps that’s why he lets himself think that for once, things will go right. He’s worried about them, sure, but he knows they have a way getting things done even if they don’t mean to. So when the mantises all shut down, he can’t stop a loud cry of victory bursting from him. It blends in with the cries of the Feds and the Republic, but he knows that Carolina catches him.

The crackle of Epsilon’s voice itches in his ear, “Carolina, we need an extraction!”

Carolina nods, even though Epsilon can’t see her, and Wash is already moving, following behind her, “Roger that. We’ll fire up a pelican and be there in a few minutes.”

They are steps away from a pelican when Wash hears Simmons say, “We…may not have a few minutes.”

The words almost cause Wash to trip in his sudden haste as he sprints to the pelican. Carolina does the same and he knows that she is feeling that slow, burning feeling of panic in her chest like he is. Just because the fighting is done here, doesn’t mean their reds and blues are out of danger. There’s only so much they can do, and Wash has to ignore the way his fingers shake when he hears their voices over the comm. Sarge is saying, “Well boys, you know what they say. Today…is a good day to die.”

 _No!_ Wash wants to scream at them not to talk like that, to stay alive until he can get there, but he is distracted as he hurries to prep the pelican with Carolina. Her movements are hard, jerky, and he knows that she is scared—that they both know there is always a cost to victory.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Grif asks, and there is something in his voice that terrifies Wash, something close to motivation, “Fuck that.”

The pelican finally lifts into the air, and when Wash’s stomach rolls, he’s not sure if it’s from the sudden height shift or the fear in his gut. It sounds like they are getting ready, preparing, and if it weren’t life or death, he’d say he was surprised. “We’re coming,” Carolina says, and her voice is firm but not completely steady, “Just hang on.”

It’s Tucker that answers her, and Wash feels even more desperation seeping into him, “We got this.” There’s a pause before Tucker asks, more quietly and more uncertainly, “I mean, we do got this, right?”

Wash wants to threaten Tucker that he better have it, that they better survive, because he can’t keep going without them—without Tucker. How many meaningful looks and lingering touches have they shared? How much time have they wasted? How much will they never get back?

Something must happen in the room, because suddenly they’re all talking at once, short exclamations of surprise, and he can’t tell exactly what’s going on. All he can make out is Epsilon ordering Tucker to take off his helmet and Wash can’t stop himself from crying, “Wait! The radio—“

But only Carolina seems to hear him, because her head turns sharply towards him. She pushes the stick forward, and they gain more speed than is probably safe, but he just nods. They need to catch up, make it to the rest of their team. They can’t lose another family.

Wash’s heart is pounding so loud he’s surprised that he can hear Sarge mutter, “Gentleman, looks like this is it.”

“We’re almost there!” Wash cries, and it sounds like he’s pleading with them to just wait, wait a few more minutes before they face whatever’s threatening them.

“Sir, it’s been an honor,” Simmons replies, as if he doesn’t hear Washington. He thinks he’s had nightmares of this before.

“Si muero, asegúrense de que mis piezas sean recicladas.”

“I love you too, Lopez!” Donut says and he sounds like he’s crying and that feeling in Wash’s chest is burning hotter, the flames licking up his throat.

“Aw, that’s so sweet!” Doc says lightly, but then turns darker, “Now let us strike fear into the hearts of our enemies!”

“Smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Grif says.

“Yeah! Let’s get ‘em!” Caboose cries.

“Hey, uh, I just want you guys to know that, out of everyone I've ever met... I hate you all the least,” Epsilon says and Carolina’s hands tighten around the stick. Wash swallows the lump I his throat, leaning forward, trying to see the ship through the clouds.

“See you on the other side, Church,” Tucker says, thankfully on the same channel, but apparently with a new helmet.

Wash is so fucking proud of them—that they’re standing their ground, that they’re together, that they’re alive. He just wants it to stay that way, just wants to douse the panic in his heart and see his friends—his _family_.

“Guys, we’re close. Please just hang on,” Wash chokes out, and Carolina is grunting from her seat beside him.

There is a lot of screaming. He can hear gunfire, shouts of pain, fearful cries, voices he doesn’t recognize. It has him on the edge of his seat, heart thundering and stomach rolling. _Please, please, please…_

The Staff of Charon finally comes into view and Wash can’t stop talking, letting any and every assurance he can think of stream out of his mouth, “We’re close, hang on, what’s going on, we’ll be here, please, just…”

“Wash!” Tucker cries and Wash feels the voice squeeze his heart.

“I’m here,” he says, “I’m close, Tucker—“

“We can’t hold on much longer! The suit, it’s—“ Tucker’s voice suddenly cuts off, along with all other radio chatter. He can’t hear anything. It terrifies him, and he thinks maybe his helmet is malfunctioning, but Carolina starts to shout.

“What happened? Hello? Goddammit, _answer me!”_ The desperation in her voice sends a cold shiver of fear down his back, because this is real, he could have just lost everything again. They needed him— _Tucker_ needed him and he hadn’t been there and now he and Carolina are going to be alone.

They are both running as soon as their feet hit the ground. It’s a short trek to their last known coordinates, and the two of them shoot down any lingering soldiers with ease. There is still silence over the radio, a silence he never wants to fucking hear, can’t deal with. Bodies are piled on top of each other in a hallway, leading to the room where the reds and blues must have holed up.

It becomes a little easier to breathe as none of the colors match the ones he is looking for. Carolina runs ahead, skidding to a stop just inside the door. “Guys?” he cries as he pushes past her, but the room is empty. There is plot splattered on every wall, more bodies of those soldiers who managed to push forward, an upturned table, relics lining the wall. The fire of desperation, of terror, of panic turns to ash in his mouth.

Carolina drops to her knees. “Where are they?” Wash demands, pacing the room, checking around every corner, as if they were hiding, “Where the fuck are they?”

He knows they’re probably dead. He knows he has lost the funniest, most stubborn and irrational group of soldiers he has ever met. He will never get to hear the red team bicker again, never be shocked by Caboose’s mechanical aptitude again, never get to kiss Tucker. There is a growing list of nevers unrolling before him, his future closing the door in his face.

He deserves it. He should have gone with them. He should _be_ with them.

A strangled choking sound bursts from Carolina and he realizes she’s crying. Wash has never seen nor heard her cry before—it hurts. “Not again…not again…” she is murmuring brokenly, rocking back and forth on her knees.

Wash’s eyes are curiously dry. He knows he will cry later, when he lays down to face the loss of his family. He knows he won’t be able to escape it. “Where are the bodies?” He asks dumbly, his voice distant and unsteady.

He doesn’t expect Carolina to answer, but she climbs to her feet and leans against the wall for support, “There aren’t any bodies,” she echoes.

“I know,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. They don’t even have the bodies, they can’t even have that small comfort.

“There aren’t any _bodies,”_ she repeats, stronger this time.

He thinks maybe she’s finally lost it.

“They’re not dead,” she says, nodding to herself, “They’re lost. We have to find them.”

“Carolina…” his voice is little more than a breath. It hurts, he can’t do this. Hoping they’re alive will only make the ache worse, pull him apart in new ways.

“Wash,” she snaps, “We don’t have any bodies. They’re not dead until we get bodies.”

Against his better judgement, he nods, “Okay.”

Wash doesn’t think it’s better if they go from KIA to MIA, but maybe it matters. Maybe to someone else, who can’t feel their silence pressing against their ears, it seems like a real difference. Either way, Wash isn’t with them, and that’s the part that matters.

“We’re still coming,” Carolina says into her radio, even though he is the only one able to hear it, “We’re on our way, okay? Hang in there.”

Wash doesn’t say anything, but he does walk over to Tucker’s discarded armor and begin to gather it. It’s the closest thing to a body he has. For the briefest moment, he thinks he understands how the Director could do what he had done. For the briefest moment, it seems so easy.

**Author's Note:**

> i just got a new laptop and i was going through my documents and i found this fic that i started a _long_ time ago, so i finished it even tho i dont really remember the point of it


End file.
